A shopkeeper?

The stand was about as run down as run down could be used to describe anything. It was made of wood that looked like it was thousands of years old and was about to give in on itself at any moment. It had countless knots in its body, only making its appearance even more less trustworthy.

Approaching it, Kai couldn't help but wonder how exactly he was meant to use it. When he got closer no new notification or screen appeared before him, so he was stumped.

Once he reached the actual stand, Kai poked the wood with a finger but quickly pulled it back after the old wood creaked loudly. That sound was definitely not a good sign.

"Seriously... what sort of shitty shop is this?"

Kai simply stared blankly at the stand. This had to be the worst shop in all of existence, it was so useless!

You couldn't even buy anything from it, and there wasn't even a shopkeeper-

"Mi mi mi mi mi mi mi mi..."

Kai was snapped out of those thoughts by the sound of... what actually was that? It sounded like the noises a cartoon character would make when they were sleeping. But more importantly, who actually made that noise when they slept?

Actually, the more important question was probably just who made that noise.

Careful not to touch the stand in case it fell over, Kai leaned over and looked down, promptly letting out a:

"Huh..."

There was a small wooden stool behind the stand, and sleeping on the stool was a cute little cat.

The cat was pretty small, it's whole body curled in a perfect circle on the stool. It's body was pure white, like fresh snow on a winter morning.

Suddenly, the cat let out a yawn and stretched. It's tail twitched as it sat up on its stool. Unaware of Kai, it stood up and looked up, noticing a red haired boy looking down at it.

The cat batted it's eyes.

"Oh, a customer. Is it time already?"

Kai stared blankly down at the cute cat.

"Why is a cat the shopkeeper?"

The cat blinked again.

"Oh, I'm a cat this time? Well, I suppose this is one of the more common forms."

Now it was Kai's turn to blink, there was definitely nothing normal about this cat, especially when Kai looked into its eyes. While Kai's eyes may have been considered strange because of the dot in his irises, this cat's eyes were different colours. It's left eye was a bright blue, meanwhile its right eye was a nice shade of yellow.

"What-"

Kai was swiftly cut off by the cat before he could ask his question.

"No, I'm not a cat, I am me. I run this humble tutorial shop everytime there's a tutorial, easy pickings considering how gullible and naive majority of the participants are.

I'm not a cat, I simply just appear as whatever the participant wants. For example, I'm a cat here, but could be a dog, vacuum or even an attractive female in someone's else's tutorial shop.

It's always me though, I just have a lot of consciences."

Kai sighed and pinched the brow of his nose, wondering why everything had to be so complicated.

"So why are you a cat, and a cat with different coloured eyes at that? I'm more of a dog person to be honest, so I don't really get it."

The cat shrugged in response.

"Beats me, but I can switch forms if you want, if that makes you want to spend more points. There's quite a variety of forms I can take on, I can tell you some of the ones that other people from your tutorial ended up with-"

"No... that won't be necessary."

Kai did not want to know what sort of form would want to make Noelle or Sofia spend more money incase he ended up scarring himself.

"Well okay then" The cat grinned. "What would you like to spend your points on, there's a lot for sale."

Kai blinked.

"I don't know how many points I have."

The cat stared blankly at Kai before rolling it's multicoloured eyes.

"Open your status."

Realising that the answer was pretty obvious, Kai did not respond and opened his status screen.

Congratulations on completing your tutorial!

As you have claimed first place, your point total will receive a 25% boost.

Here is an in depth analysis of all your points.

Third person to kill an abomination in your tutorial + killing an abomination above your level - +466 points

The notifications kept on coming, but Kai could only skim through them as he was on a timer after all.

Then, the cat was kind enough to tell Kai that there was a summary function, so that is what he used.

Moon beasts killed - +120 points

Humans killed - +110 points

Crescent moon abominations killed - +44231 points

Quarter moon abominations killed - +32789 points

Gibbous moon abominations killed - +0 points

Evolved abominations killed - +90000 points

Full moon abominations killed - +200000 points

Constance of Regret slain - +100000

First to form a Soul Core in your tutorial - +10000 points

First to form a D rank Soul Core in your tutorial - +20000

First to form a C rank Soul Core in your tutorial- +30000

Killed over 1000 crescent moon abominations - +10% total to points gained from killing crescent moon abominations

Killed 3 high level entities - +50% points gained from killing high level entities

Point total - 682139

Adding in 25% increase

Point total - 852673

Even with that summary feature, it was a long list.

But damn was it worth it.

Over eight hundred and fifty thousand points, that was how many Kai had gotten. Surely no one else had gotten anywhere remotely close to that, especially when considering that four hundred and fifty thousand had come from killing Failure, the Demon and the Eradication Blade.

"Okay" Kai nodded as he closed his status, turning back to the cat, who had chosen to lie down on the rickety stand and clean it's paws, not worried that the stand could potentially collapse at any moment. "I have just over eight hundred and fifty thousand points."

The cats eyes widened as it stopped licking its paws.

"That many? Well, it was expected that you would have a lot considering you got first, but that is still quite a big number."

Curious, Kai asked the cat:

"What's the most points that someone got in a tutorial?"

The cat went back to licking it's paws.

"Just under two and a half million."

Kai's eyes widened. Two and a half million? How many Demon's would he need to kill to reach that number?

Obviously it was twenty five, but that was still way too many for it to be plausible.

"There's no point comparing yourself to them, the person who got those points went on to become a god, plus their innate ability was just very suited for the tutorial that they were sent to. Even to this day I wouldn't count their tutorial as a real tutorial."

Kai sighed and shook his head dissapointedly.

"Fine, anyway, can you show me the shop?"

The cat yawned as it waved its tail. Not expecting anything to happen with the action, Kai was shocked when a new screen appeared in front of his eyes.

However, to his shock, this screen... was green.

It was a little generic that his normal status screen was blue while the one to do with money and shops was green, but Kai wasn't going to complain.

Especially when there was so many categories that he could explore.

Weapons

Armour

Utility

General

Skills

Limb Enhancements

Familiar items

Upgrade items

Unique

Kai whistled softly as he took it all in. These were the fruits of his labour, all his points were available to spend now.

He was like a child in a candy shop that had been given a credit card by his millionaire father and told to buy whatever he wanted.

There was so many options, so many things Kai wanted to look at.

He obviously wasn't going to make his decisions until the final few minutes. There was over twenty minutes left in this shop, so Kai wanted to use every second possible to make the best choices for his points.

But what would those best choices be?

Especially when considering that he would be able to choose one item from this shop for completetly free.

Kai wondered if the cat knew that, considering Kai could potentially just take its most expensive item for free. It probably wouldn't be happy with that anyway.

But price didn't always nescessarily mean good. Kai would throuroughly think through all his options before he made a choice, and he was just going to factor the fact that he could select an item for free into that choice.

But where to start was the question. Kai was going to at least check out every category, so he would just look in the category that he believed he needed to upgrade the most.

Kai nodded his head as his finger hit the armour button.